For many years, the only manner in which personal skincare items in the spa market could be warmed or heated was by utilizing an external heat source. Typically, this source was a pot of boiling or hot water, an electric heating apparatus or other basic heating sources. In either case, while the warmth was certainly available for use, the risk of having that heating apparatus in the proximity of spa guests was significant. For instance, a spa guest could easily be scalded by hot water, and the danger of using electrical appliances in spa-type environments is widely known.
Moreover, the spa or salon and beauty industries have for many years made widespread use of coloring agents and hair treatments that require the application of heat to the treated area. Typically, a product that is heat reactive is applied to specified portions of the hair or scalp and heat is applied individually or en masse. For example, for highlighting hair using heat sensitive chemicals, the chemicals (some time pre-heated) are applied to hair segments (usually isolated from other hair segments by foil) and wrapping the treated hair with the foil and applying a hot air blow dryer to the hair for a prolonged period, or placing the person's head under a hot air hair dryer to activate the chemicals. Also, for revitalizing or straightening hair, some of the applied chemicals or oils are known to be more effective when heat is applied. For example, keratin proteins and amino acids require heat to dissolve, bond and strengthen hair.
Readily evident is the fact that the application of heat can be time consuming and often, the customer must wait for the various spa products and chemicals when they are pre-heated. Of course, the products can be heated to too hot a temperature, which lead to high discomfort for the treated person or in some cases, even burns. Therefore, the application of heat in a controlled manner is of important concern.
Many other uses require the generation of heat for application to portions of a person's body. For example, temperature elevation and maintenance for clothing and/or wearable articles is an ongoing issue for survival gear as well as for athletes, for spa and beauty, and medical personnel, to name a few. Traditional attempts to heat a person's body have included insulation wraps, thermal reservoirs, electrical resistance heating, chemically generated heat, dipping in hot water, and so forth. However, the heat generated can be very unstable and dangerous in some cases. Also, the duration of the heat is very limited resulting in the user having to “reapply” a new heated article (including the added time and effort to remove the old article and prepare the new article for placement). As can be seen, this can be a significant inconvenience and sometimes can result in a life-threatening oversight.
Moreover, most of this gear is directed, more or less, to a multiple use implementation, rather than something that can be of single use or limited use. Therefore, their weight is a substantial concern. The lack of popularity or widespread use of these products is a testimony to their inability to provide an adequately portable, cost-effective, lightweight, flexible, safe heating mechanism for warming for a prolonged period, a person or a part of a person's body.
Another common spa treatment is a popular therapeutic massage technique involving heating natural stones or ceramic implements and using them to massage different parts of the body of the massage recipient. Typically, the massage implements are heated with an external heat source such as a container of hot water or an electric heater. However, this approach has several drawbacks. First, the massage therapist must take care to not overheat the implements and burn the massage recipient, but at the same time ensure that the implements are hot enough to achieve their therapeutic purpose. Second, the implements begin cooling the moment they are removed from the external heat source. Even if the implements are at the desired temperature when they are first used, the implements constantly cool down until they must be returned to the external heat source. Thus, much of the time and effort of the massage therapist is occupied by shuttling implements between the heat source and the massage recipient, rather than being completely focused on performing the massage.
Methods of generating heat by using a non-apparatus driven heat source have been described in the following disclosure, along with various applications for self-heated consumer products. All of the products described utilize a heat producing reaction in various therapeutic and/or spa treatments to portions of a human body wherein the temperature must be maintained at a safe and comfortable rate, and the apparatus utilized for applying treatments at an elevated temperature must be specially designed to administer heat at a safe temperature for prolonged periods of time.
Accordingly, there is a need in the field to provide for various self-contained heating apparatuses for use in generating a prolonged heat-producing reaction to apply heat to portions of a human body that is both safe against skin and easy to use.